D-SEND#2 campaign 3

Balloon borne experiment of sonic booms

SSC balloon launch team at Esrange Space Center is conducting two heavy lifts with stratospheric ballons to performe technological tests on behalf of the Japanese space organisation JAXA.

JAXA is conducting research for the next generations of aircraft. Their goal is to design a silent supersonic transportation system that is economically viable and eco friendly for travels in the 21st century. The D-SEND project is composed of drop tests D-SEND #1 and D-SEND #2. In the first phase called D-SEND#1, two different axisymmetric bodies were dropped from a balloon, and the sonic booms, measured both in the air and on the ground, were compared with each other.

In the D-SEND #2 drop test, an experimental supersonic airplane (unmanned aircraft with no engine and capable of autonomous flight) designed utilizing JAXA's proprietary low sonic boom design technology is dropped from a balloon at an altitude of 30 km. The unmanned aircraft will glide over the boom measurement systems at Mach 1.3 and a flight-path angle of 50 degrees, where the generated boom signature goes down vertically toward the systems. The sonic boom is measured by a series of boom measurement systems held at an altitude of 1km.

With D-SEND #2, JAXA aim to achieve the following goals.

Demonstrate the effect of low sonic boom design at the front and end of the fuselage